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Why the Arctic Sea Ice Matters to All Complex Life on the Planet

January 2, 2022

Why the Arctic Sea Ice Matters to All Complex Life on the Planet

“President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’”

Clearly we have lost the Arctic as one of our major planetary thermostats.

Myself, Beryl Sirmacek, John Doyle and Arctic Oceanographer Jim Massa discuss the unravelling in the Arctic and the cascading consequences of lost albedo and habitat for the Arctic fauna and flora both above and below the ice

I mentioned the possibility of the Great Barrier Reef having another bleaching event unfold late in January 2022; Great Barrier Reef could face another mass bleaching by end of January, forecast says

Guy McPherson and I interviewed Jim Massa on our radio show Nature Bats Last;
“Natalia and Igor have done an enormous amount of work studying the methane issue. They have covered a lot of area between the Russian side of the arctic ocean as well as Siberia itself examining what is happening to not only the ESAS and Laptev but the permafrost in the tundra itself.

Those who are quick to dismiss their work, say they are being hyperbolic about the methane time bomb are really missing the forest for the trees. If they wish to debate their estimated levels, okay, have that debate. That’s a legitimate scientific debate. But to be dismissive of the threat posed by methane is imo a grave error in judgment.” Jim Massa We discussed the threat of methane in the ESAS and the work of Dr Natalia Shakova and Igor Semiletov Current rates and mechanisms of subsea permafrost degradation in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf

Science Talk with Jim Massa on Nature Bats Last
Beryl brilliantly mocked the delinquent corporate construct the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change..

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“If We Lose the Arctic We Lose the Globe” We’ve Lost the Arctic

December 10, 2021

“If We Lose the Arctic We Lose the Globe” We’ve Lost the Arctic

“Changes will happen decades earlier than previously thought.”
Now where have we heard that before?
“More rain than snow will fall in the Arctic and this transition will occur decades earlier than previously predicted, a new study led by the University of Manitoba (UM) and co-authored by scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at CU Boulder reports.”

New Climate Study Predicting More Rain Than Snow in the Arctic ‘Rings Alarm Bells’

“There are huge ramifications of these changes,” said the lead researcher, “all of which have implications on wildlife populations and human livelihoods.”
“There are huge ramifications of these changes, which we note in the paper, such as a reduction of snow cover, increased permafrost melt, more rain-on-snow events, and greater flooding events from increased river discharge, all of which have implications on wildlife populations and human livelihoods,” says lead researcher Michelle McCrystall, a postdoctoral fellow in UM’s Centre for Earth Observation Science in the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources.
Rainfall in Arctic Will Soon Be More Common Than Snowfall – Decades Earlier Than Thought

“The Arctic is iconic for maintaining year-round ice and snow, but in the last decade, it has begun to transition to wetlands and open ocean. Emblematic of this change, in July 2020, the last intact ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic fell into the sea. Since first analyzed in 1902, the Milne ice sheet already lost 43 percent of its previous mass. Canada’s Ellesmere Island ice caps were also lost in the summer of 2020, as the ice deposited during the Little Ice Age (1600 to 1850) melted completely…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Q&A: How is Arctic warming linked to the ‘polar vortex’ and other extreme weather?

February 2, 2019

Q&A: How is Arctic warming linked to the ‘polar vortex’ and other extreme weather?

The past week has seen some brutal weather hitting the US and Canada. With cold Arctic air plunging south down to the US midwest, six states have seen temperatures lower than the south pole and at least eight people have died due to the extreme cold.

The UK, too, is braced for snow this week, but nothing close to the scale seen in the US.

The very cold weather prompted President Trump to tweet: “What the hell is going on with Global Waming? [sic].” This followed an earlier tweet that it “wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!”

Trump’s comments received widespread derision from scientists and the media, with many articles pointing out that Trump is confusing short-term weather events with long-term climate, and that extreme cold weather still occurs in a warming world.

The cold, snowy weather has also been accompanied by a flurry of stories about the “polar vortex” and how it can bring extreme weather to the northern hemisphere mid-latitude regions of North America, Europe and Asia. But that is not the only way that the Arctic can affect conditions further south.

Over the past decade or so, a growing body of research has proposed ways in which rapid Arctic warming can lead to harsh winters, summer heatwaves and even floods and droughts across the mid-latitudes.

Some scientists say that climate change and Arctic sea ice loss are the root cause of these events, but others are more circumspect.

In this detailed Q&A, Carbon Brief speaks to scientists about the potential connections between Arctic warming and extreme weather across the mid-latitudes, what those theories look like, and how the evidence measures up.

 …click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Arctic Heats Up in the Dead of Winter

March 6, 2018

The Arctic Heats Up in the Dead of Winter

Photo by NOAA Photo Library | CC BY 2.0

Every once in a while a climatic event hits that forces people to sit down to catch their breath. Along those lines, abnormal Arctic heat waves in the dead of winter may force scientists to revaluate downwards (or maybe upwards, depending) their most pessimistic of forecasts.

By the end of February 2018, large portions of the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland were open blue water, meaning no ice. But, it’s wintertime, no daylight 24/7, yet no ice in areas where it’s usually some meters thick! In a remarkable, mindboggling turn of events, thick ice in early February by month’s end turned into wide open blue water, metaphorically equivalent to an airline passenger at 35,000 feet watching rivets pop off the fuselage.

The sea ice north of Greenland is historically the thickest, most solid ice of the North Pole. But, it’s gone all of a sudden! Egads, what’s happening and is it a danger signal? Answer: Probably, depending upon which scientist is consulted. Assuredly, nobody predicted loss of ice north of Greenland in the midst of winter.

Wide open blue seas in the Arctic expose all of humanity to risks of Runaway Global Warming (“RGW”) as, over time, massive amounts of methane erupts with ancillary sizzling of agricultural crops, and as the Arctic heats up much faster than the rest of the planet, this also throws a curve ball at weather patterns all across the Northern Hemisphere, radical weather patterns ensue, like snow on the French Riviera only recently.

According to Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, February was the warmest (hottest) on record in the Arctic, which includes 10 days of temps above freezing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Food Insecurity: Arctic Heat Is Threatening Indigenous Life

March 17, 2016

Food Insecurity: Arctic Heat Is Threatening Indigenous Life

Subsistence hunters in the Arctic have long taken to the sea ice to hunt seals, whales, and polar bears. But now, as the ice disappears and soaring temperatures alter the life cycles and abundance of their prey, a growing number of indigenous communities are facing food shortages.

An Inuit hunter pulls one of his dogs from a crack in the ice. View gallery.
Photo: Ed Struzik

The decades-long trend of extreme Arctic warming hit new heights this winter, as a mass of exceptionally warm air invaded the region, raising temperatures by almost 50 degrees Fahrenheit above average in some areas and driving temperatures above the freezing mark at the North Pole in late December. Arctic Ocean ice cover reached a new record winter low last month, putting even more stress on sea-ice-dependent seals and polar bears. Other wildlife populations, including caribou and some seabirds, are declining as species struggle to adapt to a swiftly changing polar ecosystem.

All these changes are also making it more difficult for Arctic people to put food on the table. The big Arctic melt is having a profoundly negative impact on many indigenous hunters, who for millennia have relied on the pursuit of whales, seals, fish, and land mammals such as caribou to feed their families. Even today, in an era of greater government support of far northern Native communities, indigenous people across the Arctic — from the Inuit of Canada and Greenland to the Yupik and Dene of Alaska — still depend heavily on subsistence hunting.

Now, as sea ice becomes an increasingly unreliable hunting platform and soaring temperatures alter the life cycles and abundance of prey species, some indigenous communities are facing worsening food shortages and a lack of proper nutrition. Last year, the U.S. government had to ship in frozen fish to Alaska communities whose walrus hunts had failed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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